Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 525 Editor's Choice: 1
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ABAB:
[Read the article: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well S you have to take the words where they lead you, don't you?
such and such is an evil evil evil guy because (insert 10,000 words of examples here) whereas the same people say such and such is a bad man (no example given).....
crickets chirping.
Clearly the implication is that Farakhan has been smeared, maligned, slandered whereas evil evil evil guy #1 is probably smoking crack with Satan while we speak.
Which is fine if you believe that, it just helps to admit it is all. That's what journalism is.
Again, I must conclude you have some different notion of what it means for something to be "clear" in the form of an implication. I will try an example of what I see to be a "clear implication"
I note the title of the piece is
"Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable"
The obvious implication there, is that Farrakhan too is one of those hateful, radical ministers, since the differential that he is not a white evangelical is spelt out. This is a comparative title that leaves the reader with the following attributes to the two:
Farrakhan:
- hateful
- radical
Hagee:
- hateful
- radical
- white
- evangelical
So what you claim not to exist in the piece is there in the very title.
Further, we have Glenn in the second paragraph:
Yesterday, though, the equally fringe, radical and hateful (at least) Rev. John Hagee
For Hagee to be "equally" a bunch of negatives to Farrakhan must mean Farrakhan is also some degree of those negative attributes.
I ask that you retract your point as not only unfounded and unsupported by the piece, but in fact, directly contradicted by it. All you have is that Glenn did not do some "balance" paragraph of "by the way Farrakhan is terrible and here's some reasons why..." - he didn't need to. The mainstream press has spent a lot of ink doing that, and I see no need for Glenn to reguritate Farrakhan's problematic utterances here too.
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AnnieW:
[Read the article: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I guess the problem is, many of us know, and/or have grown up with hard core evangelicals and so it makes us not as "frightened" of their more extreme views. We see them as people who we work with, live next door to, etc., even if we disagree with them. They do not appear one dimensional to us, many are our friends.
My great grandfather was a hard core fundie with racist leanings, yet now my family is predominantly Roman Catholic, he had to adapt to the Catholicism first, then mixed marriages, and adapt he did. One grandmother was a John Bircher and a fairly militant member of the right to life movement. My office mate is Bible literalist, Limbaugh loving, educated engineer who believes in witchcraft, demons and devils and can't believe I can't see the dangers out there.
People like Farrakhan, on the other hand, do not enter the normal middle class (white) American life, especially if they do not live in an urban area.. Most of us do not know people like him so it's easy for the press to make a caricature of him and his views.
It is inherently racist.
This is very insightful and I'm highlighting it in case anyone missed it. It is precisely why unbigoted (consciously at least) people like Russert would find Farrakhan so scary and Hagee not worth noting. Familiarity to danger breeds contempt.
The lunatic ranting on a street corner about the day of reckoning is laughable until he has an angry mob with torches soaking up his words. Suddenly he's not so amusing.
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ABABABA: (A Billion Angry Bees Avoiding Being Admonished)
[Read the article: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wouldn't normally re-call you out, but it's been several hours and no reply, while back on page 7 or 8 you were complaining about the "silence" of someone else you replied to, so...what of it?
Will you retract your baseless and counterfactual claim that Glenn's piece is supportive of Farrakhan or that Glenn is some kind of closet admirer of Farrakhan?
You have been proven wrong. Own up and we can move on. Evade, and join the class of irritating trolls that only serve as a foil for witticism and scorn by intellectually honest commentators.
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Aycharaych:
[Read the article: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's probably futile but who knows? If arguing on the internet never changes anything, then why are any of us here?
My expectation is not to turn ABAB to agree with Glenn's point, or some similar radical epiphany. But if s/he's a little less eager to throw out baseless accusations that confirm his/her own biases about people, then it will be worth it.
Make a wingnut into a regular conservative, and a regular one into a moderate and a moderate into a liberal, and so forth (or whatever ideological destination you might prefer someone arrive at). That mirrors my own trip from conservative to liberal in slightly less than 2 years time, starting in 2003.
Besides, I actually have seen people change their minds about things, "live" on the internet. When Ron Paul voted alone against the Darfur Divestment act, some people I was discussing it with were sufficiently disgusted to disavow him from then on. That was a glaring incident, which certainly helps, but minds are not as closed as we sometimes think.
And of course, I can't deny it is satisfying to rub it in. I'm human too and being right is gratifying for its own sake.